Robert Schwalb releases his version of Warlord

Robert Schwalb, who designed one of my favorite games (Shadow of the Demon Lord), with a version of one of my favorite classes? Sold.

 

[shawnellsworth]

This is already platinum. Amazing!

Sold (just grabbed a copy).

 

[The Fighter-Cricket]

And, lo, behold: The people yearned for the Lord of War for many a moon and their cries went unnoticed by The Apostate Whose Name Rhymes With Pearls. And the people craved a class that they held dear from the old days but He Who Begrudges Us A Totally Okay Class Concept (cursed be his name) did not listen. Then the great prophet Schwalb (He Whose Name Sounds Boring But He Is A Totally Rad Designer) went to the people and said "There you have it" and the clouds of the internet suddenly parted and the exaltation was great. So from this day on the people celebrated by giving out free bonus actions to one another.

Sold.

 

[R_Chance]

I'll probably "sold" it. But a 1st level "tactical genius" just makes me smile

 

[doctorbadwolf]

At 6th level you can forgo an attack and cause an ally to take a reaction to make a weapon attack. At 10th level you can grant allies they ability to spend hit dice without a rest (AND they can remove 1 lev exhaustion). Of course, lots of other abilities in there, but these two stood out. It's worth the small sum to purchase it.

I'd almost rather it use the warlord's Action, and not use the other character's Reaction, but otherwise that sounds good.

I'm in 4E mode, as I'm running two 4E campaigns.

Just looking at the warlord for my 4E game, and I hate to say that while I love the concept, it's very under-powered (unless I'm missing something). You don't get the bonus healing that Clerics or Bards get, your At-Wills are situational at best (and worthless at worst). Your best ability is to let other people make Basic Melee Attacks (which aren't nearly as good as what At-Wills are). It requires having 3 great abilities scores to be decent (Strength, Intelligence, and Charisma) - so you can't specialize. Probably the worst Leader in the game.

This one ... I'd like to know more before buying it. I have a feeling it's gonna be mechanically unbalanced and serve little point from a game perspective (like much of 5E).

The 4e Warlord is one of the strongest classes, lazy or not. And you should probably choose either Cha or Int to focus on. Choosing both increases complexity, but that's a choice you make.

I can't create classes with it and I have to re-buy my books again for use with it?

I wonder why THAT'S not more popular.

Sorry, maybe that's being a little too sarcastic, and maybe I'm kind of piling on. If you enjoy D&D Beyond, then I'm genuinely glad for you. However, it seems the more I hear about it the more it seems like it's actively trying to push me away from being a customer.

It's pretty incredibly popular, and for good reason.

I don't expect every feature imaginable. However, the program, presumably, already deals with races, subraces, classes, subclasses, weapons, armors, feats, spells and magic items. I would expect to be able to create, type in, and save my own versions of any one of these things and have it flow through as the material from the official books does. If I have to input some classification codes so the program knows to make certain bonuses flow from one spot to another, that's fine, but I expect to be able to input homebrew stuff (or stuff in third-party books I own) and have it flow through to all the appropriate places.

Given how prevalent homebrew is in D&D, with homebrew technically being the most popular setting and us constantly being told to change rules to make things more fun for our table, it seems to me that the ability to support homebrew is a vital function of any D&D assisting program.

Cool. It does all of that, except classes. The bolded (by me) text is exactly what the homebrew tools in DnDBeyond do. You can also use them to input your phb and other wotc material, if you want. You can't make that "homebrew" public for other users, but you can view it and make characters with it.

The reason I don't use Beyond is the price and I have already bought the books. I don't mind paying for digital versions but expect them to be cheaper than physical copies since they don't really have to produce anything physical or pay to ship/distribute it. If you have lots of money to waste or only play online it looks a lot better IMHO.

Logically/legally you are 100% right. I'm not going to pay more and get less though. Digital needs to be competitive price wise with Amazon at the very least IMHO.

I have paid Amazon or better prices for every product I own on DDB, which is everything except Dungeon of The Mad Mage. When new stuff comes out, I wait for a 20% or 25% off code, and get it then. WHen I got the Legendary Bundle, I had already gotten other books at 25% off, and their normal cost was deducted from the cost of the Legendary Bundle, which is every book out when you buy it, at minimum retail price -15%.

Also, you get more than you get from a physical copy, the app lets you download the books permanently to your devices, and you can input whatever you want (including official material you haven't purchsed on the service) via the homebrew tools, and view them in the compendium, and use them to make characters.

Oh! And you can purchase customs packs of stuff, like all monsters from a given adventure, and if your buy that adventure later, the cost of that pack is deducted from the purchase price of the adventure.

If you've tried the free content and think that DnDbeyond is worthwhile to use then wait for a sale. I can't recall how big the discount was but I unlocked a load of content when everything was on sale. For some books I just purchased subclasses and races since I only really wanted the options for character building. If you aren't too impressed by the character sheet then I'd say keep doing what you're doing. I like DnDbeyond but I'd be just as comfortable using a sheet of paper for my character sheet.

IDK I don't play online it kind of defeats the old hang around with friends, eat crap food and have a few beers aspect of D&D. If I do online gaming its things like Stellaris or Europa Universalis IV.

I don't play dnd online, ever. I use DDB at a physical table, both as DM and as a player.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I'll probably "sold" it. But a 1st level "tactical genius" just makes me smile

Right? I mean, the same thing could be said of the class name itself. "Warlord"? At first level?

One of my many (many) issues with the Warlord concept is the idea that this 1st level mr-smarty-pants is going to tell the 16th level Fighter "I do say, old chap, may I suggest you probe your keen blade into the vile dragon's nether regions about now...no, not there, a bit higher. And give the blade a twist while you're at it. That's a good fellow!" and suddenly the 16th level Fighter is better at, well, fighting.

Maybe the reason there are no Warlords (left) in 5e is that every single one of them has been one-shot backhanded by fighters and barbarians who got tired of listening to this.

"No, no, wait! You're supposed to be drawn to my Natural Leadership! It says it right there in class description! When I give the command you...GAAKKK!!!"

 

[Guest 6801328]

Right? I mean, the same thing could be said of the class name itself. "Warlord"? At first level?

One of my many (many) issues with the Warlord concept is the idea that this 1st level mr-smarty-pants is going to tell the 16th level Fighter "I do say, old chap, may I suggest you probe your keen blade into the vile dragon's nether regions about now...no, not there, a bit higher. And give the blade a twist while you're at it. That's a good fellow!" and suddenly the 16th level Fighter is better at, well, fighting.

Maybe the reason there are no Warlords (left) in 5e is that every single one of them has been one-shot backhanded by fighters and barbarians who got tired of listening to this.

"No, no, wait! You are drawn to my Natural Leadership! It says it right there in class description! When I give the command you...GAAKKK!!!"

(Mmmm....the visual I get from re-reading that makes me smile.)

 

[Arnwolf666]

Love the designer and want to see his work. But I am really looking for a good warlord archetype for the Fighter, not a stand alone class. Now before I am attacked I am glad this option is open for those that want it. It is just not quite what I am looking for (I think). I want something more similar to the battlemaster mechanic. But we shall see.

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

I find that the En5ider Noble class, the MHP Warmage class and the Arcanis 5e Fighter class remake (with the Tactician subclass) all make for better Warlord classes than this one.

Not Sold.

 

[Azzy]

(Mmmm....the visual I get from re-reading that makes me smile.)

As long as you're done masturbating to your own post.

 

[Zardnaar]

Right? I mean, the same thing could be said of the class name itself. "Warlord"? At first level?

One of my many (many) issues with the Warlord concept is the idea that this 1st level mr-smarty-pants is going to tell the 16th level Fighter "I do say, old chap, may I suggest you probe your keen blade into the vile dragon's nether regions about now...no, not there, a bit higher. And give the blade a twist while you're at it. That's a good fellow!" and suddenly the 16th level Fighter is better at, well, fighting.

Maybe the reason there are no Warlords (left) in 5e is that every single one of them has been one-shot backhanded by fighters and barbarians who got tired of listening to this.

"No, no, wait! You're supposed to be drawn to my Natural Leadership! It says it right there in class description! When I give the command you...GAAKKK!!!"

Apparently this was happening IRL at organised play. Warlord players took the leader thing to mean boss IRL.